Waxing Gibbous Moon
Waxing Gibbous MoonImage credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio.(large image)

Waxing Gibbous in Taurus

Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 92% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 12 days young.

Moonrise and moonset

The moon rises in the afternoon and sets after midnight to early morning. It is visible to the southeast in early evening and it is up for most of the night.

Moon phases on nearby dates

Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.

Upcoming main moon phases

Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.

Moon phase and lunation details

Moon in ♉ Taurus

Moon is passing about ∠6° of ♉ Taurus tropical zodiac sector.

4 days after First Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 4 days on 28 November 2006 at 06:29.

Cold Moon after 2 days

Next Full Moon is the Cold Moon of December 2006 after 2 days on 5 December 2006 at 00:25.

Moderate tide

There is medium ocean tide on this date. Sun and Moon gravitational forces are not aligned, but meet at very acute angle, so their combined tidal force is moderate.

Apparent angular diameter ∠1957"

Lunar disc appears visually 0.5% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1957" and ∠1946".

Lunation 85 / 1038

The Moon is 12 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 85 of Meeus index or 1038 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.65 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 15 hours and 43 minutes and it is 1 hour and 43 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. The lengths of the following synodic months are going to decrease with the lunar orbit true anomaly getting closer to the value it has at the point of New Moon at perigee (∠0° or ∠360°).

Lunation length longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 2 hours and 59 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 4 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠238.7°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠238.7° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠276.5°.

Moon at perigee

Moon is at perigee at 00:06 about 16 days since last apogee on 15 November 2006 at 23:20 in ♍ Virgo the lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the upcoming 11 days until point of next apogee on 13 December 2006 at 18:55 in ♍ Virgo.

Distance to Moon 365 923 km

This perigee Moon is 365 923 km (227 374 mi) away from Earth. It is 3 415 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 4 433 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.

Moon after ascending node

3 days after ascending node on 29 November 2006 at 10:26 in ♓ Pisces the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 10 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 12 December 2006 at 15:19 in ♍ Virgo.

Moon before northern standstill

9 days since the last southern standstill on 23 November 2006 at 07:12 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-28.442° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 3 days to face maximum declination of ∠28.402° at the point of next northern standstill on 6 December 2006 at 03:33 in ♊ Gemini.

Draconic month

3 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♓ Pisces the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 2 days

In 2 days on 5 December 2006 at 00:25 in ♊ Gemini the Moon is going to be in a Full Moon geocentric opposition with the Sun and thus forming the next Sun-Earth-Moon syzygy alignment.

Lunar calendar

Sources and credits

Parts of this Lunar Calendar are based on Planetary Ephemeris Data Courtesy of Fred Espenak, www.Astropixels.com

Moon phase image credit to NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio, svs.gsfc.nasa.gov